It is a known fact that Silicon Valley tech giants have extensive ties to the US government. Like, it's not a secret. At all. Yet whenever you object to internet censorship you always get people babbling about how it's a "private company" so it's okay.
caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/05/03/why…
caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/05/03/why…
If a company is intertwined with government power in myriad ways, how is its deplatforming meaningfully distinct from state censorship? Especially when its willingness to collaborate with the government protects it from antitrust cases, thereby killing any potential competition?
"Free market" types say "If you don't like it you can go on another platform!" No you can't. There's no competition. If you don't like Twitter you can leave a platform of hundreds of millions for a platform like Gab, which is like ten people and nine of them are Nazis.
They've herded everyone onto a few select monopolistic platforms, and now they're censoring those platforms with an increasingly authoritarian fist. There's no "free market" solution to this problem, because it's not happening in a free market.
I'm sure there's plenty of free speech there. There's free speech in the desert, too. Free speech doesn't matter if you've isolated yourself on a platform where your voice is only heard by a few fringey people.
